soak the dried fruits and orange zest in the tea and infuse overnight or for at least 6 hours

drain and save the liquid for later

preheat the oven to 180C

whisk egg and add to dried fruit with 2/3 of the caster sugar. Sieve the dry ingredients and add to the fruit, along with the juice of the orange. The mixture should be moist so add some of the reserved tea liquor if necessary.

pour into a greased and lined large round cake tin or 2 muffin trays and bake for 25mins. Cover with foil and bake for a further 45mins. If necessary, bake until your skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool before topping.

Nutty topping

100g candied peel

100g flaked/chopped almonds

50g golden syrup

melt golden syrup and add fruit and candied fruit. Simmer for 5 mins.

allow to cool and pile sticky mixture on top of cakes

put the kettle on, make a pot of tea and enjoy!

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At the end of last year, I had a lovely visit from Jess Salter, a journalist for The Telegraph. Over afternoon tea and a pot or three of Mr Shao’s green tea we nattered about all kinds of things: growing up – unknowingly down the road from each other – in Yorkshire, tea, business, my love of flavour and aroma and more! And it was fantastic to read Jess’ article recently featured in The Telegraph’s weekend magazine regular Word of Mouth feature. Read more here >>>

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Remember that scene from Atonement when Robbie and Cecilia meet for the first time after his imprisonment and hold hands over a cup of tea? Or that other one from Brief Encounter, when Laura and Alec share their first cup of tea together? If you like romance (and who doesn’t?!) you’ll agree with us: there’s something charming, comforting and, well, romantic, about sharing a cup of tea with your loved one.

So we’ve got the Pantry set up for you (beautiful flowers, great tunes) and we’re doing a special night, with BYO and late opening until 7pm, on Valentine’s Day. You can drink your favourite tea and indulge in this delicious afternoon tea menu:

It’s time for some introductions! This the Lahloo Pantry staff looking witchy and fabulous, getting ready for our first Witches Tea Party.

Don’t you love the hats?

On Sunday the 30th, just in time for Halloween, we turned the Pantry into a coven and served our visitors a very special afternoon tea: chai pumpkin tartlets, zombie gingerbread men, mini mud monsters, dead man’s finger sandwiches and witchy scones with our g&t.

Almost too cute to eat!

But the star of the afternoon was our Witches Brew, a special blend of our sweet Yunnan Cloud black tea with apple and spices, a warming and comforting treat to protect you against the evil spirits… We want to share the love, so if you tried it and loved it, or if you’re feeling curious (sounds good, doesn’t it?), you can find our secret recipe here.

And what did we dance to? Our soundtrack was full of retro Halloween tunes, such as this feelgood classic!

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How did you spend Halloween? Did you come to the Pantry for some afternoon tea? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Unbelievably, it’s just under 3 weeks to go until we open the doors to our very unique tea rooms and store In Clifton Village, Bristol. Here’s our first image of what our store front will look like. It’s great to see Kate’s dreams coming to life. There’s still a lot to do but the builders assure Kate that they are right on track for us to open on Friday 7th October!

We would just like to congratulate one of our new(-ish) customers on being awarded, one of the best places in the UK to enjoy afternoon tea. The Angel Hotel in Wales, a charming Georgian hotel, has achieved the highest accolade of the tea world by winning The Tea Guild’s Top City and Country Hotel Tea Award 2011.

This Tea Guild event, now in its 26th year, is considered the ‘Oscar’ of the tea world, with the best tea rooms in the UK competing for the hugely coveted honour. The Angel Hotel was voted into the top spot after it gained a near perfect score from The Tea Guild’s inspectors. The judges praised it for its smart and elegant surroundings, attentive and efficient service and tasty sandwiches, cakes and scones. The judges were also very impressed by the choice of teas on offer and the quality of tea served. The judges concluded that “it was a smooth operation from start to finish. Everyone was made to feel special.”

Well done on such a wonderful achievement William and the team, from all of us here at Lahloo Tea.

PS we’ve also just discovered that we are going to be going to Abergavenny Food Festival again this year. So why not book into The Angel Hotel and come and visit us at the most important food festival in any foodies’ diary. Oh, and don’t forget to stop for a spot of afternoon tea too!

The first time I ever went to Paris I fell in love. Paris is a truly magical city full of wonderful and inspiring sights, sounds, shops, cafes, chic-ness, food and drink. One of my lasting memories of Paris will always be the first time I spotted macaroons! Wandering and cycling (my favourite thing to do in Paris) through the chic streets of Paris, we stumbled across Laduree, a beautiful almost fairytale-like patisserie and salon du the. Oozing with style and indulgence, I just had to go in.

Laduree has been making beautiful patisserie since 1862 but what they’re really famous for is, macaroons. Not only do their eye-catching candy colours look beautiful but these bite-sized little meringues are just delicious. Ever since I first bit into the crisp outer shell and sunk my teeth sumptuously into the soft, smooth inside they have become my favourite tea time treat.

I went to Paris a couple of weeks ago and discovered Sadahuru Aoki’s beautiful Japanese-French patisserie full of stunning looking and sensationally tasting tea inspired patisserie. His Matcha Millefeuille and Zen cakes were incredible and just right with a cup of Japanese green tea after our long cycle uphill to get there!

Once we’d savoured our wonderful patisserie and felt utterly revitalised, we couldn’t resist bringing some of his wonderful treats back to the Lahloo hub. It’s really difficult to find good macaroons in Bristol (although you can find them in London: Laduree in Harrods and the Burlington Arcade, Pierre Herme‘s pop-up in Selfridges and more recently Bougie in Covent Garden) so I brought a whole box of tea and Japanese inspired macarons – Genmaicha, Matcha, Hojicha, Yuzu and Sesame. What a treat! You see, they are just the right texture, size and sweetness to go with a cup of Lahloo tea – crisp and chewy on the outside, smooth and soft in the middle. Absolutely dreamy!

Unfortunately, I’m not in London, or Paris, enough to keep my habit satisfied so for ages I’ve been trying to find a recipe that meant I could make them at home. I’ve finally (after lots of failed attempts) found an easy to follow recipe to use that works every single time. Thanks to this recipe I adapted from Lorraine Pascale’s ‘Baking made Easy’ programme on BBC recently, I can now easily make macaroons to enjoy. And I’m in heaven!